You can’t fault Gearbox for its imagination. With their latest project Battleborn lashing together the traditional MOBA (a top-down arena strategy game) with first-person shooters, it’s an idea that’s appealing precisely because it’s so left-field.

This is a demonstration that the industry still has its creative faculties intact. Of course, we’re at the tip of the iceberg when it comes to mixing up genres. If developers put their necks out further, they could come up with some truly mad ideas…

1. In the thick of it

It’s something I’ve dreamed of ever since playing Age of Empires as a kid, but have never seen come to life; you’ve lined up scores of troops for an earth-shaking battle. The forces ready themselves, the ground rumbles beneath their charge… However, once swords are drawn you’re rarely more than an observer making tactical adjustments here and there.

Wouldn’t it be better if you could switch to a general’s eye-view and control hand-to-hand combat personally, getting involved with the troops on the ground? Controlled like a third-person action game, this takes that tense battlefield atmosphere to the next level.

It’d also introduce a balancing act, one in which you juggle army-management in RTS mode and being an inspiring presence throughout the brawl itself.

2. Giving up the bird’s eye view

While it’s empowering to craft your own town in the likes of Command and Conquer or The Simpsons: Tapped Out, it’d be nice to go even deeper and be able to walk the streets of your creation even as you manage it.

Why not play from a perspective similar to Minecraft, with us exploring the world to find a suitable building location before watching mainstays like barracks, universities or castles snapping into being before us? The twist would be interacting with your townsfolk personally, along with managing the economy and tax-rate from the ground level.

3. Collecta-thon

Smashing, grabbing and collecting are the golden words which guide LEGO’s game series, and they’ve served it well thus far. But what if you brought that into another genre, such as the MMO?

It would round out an experience usually defined by combat, exploration and levelling, providing more opportunities for co-op and a degree of platforming that’s never been fully explored in those games (other than with Guild Wars 2, that is).

4. Strictly no killing

Over the last few years we’ve seen an explosion of fresh ideas that challenge what games can do; namely Journey. They demonstrate that it’s possible to make a meaningful, touching experience that doesn’t rely on violence; exploration is far more the order of things.

It leads me to question whether we could actually make a full RPG based on those principles. What if you were able to simply wander, meet characters and interact with their culture without having to resort to violence? That doesn’t mean combat can’t appear, just that it wouldn’t be the focus. It’d make a nice change.

5. Going side-scrolling

Paper Mario gave us a hint of how strange it’d be to see things from a side-scrolling character’s perspective, but I think there’s merit in following this idea further so that we can see the entire game from their point of view. It’d make things a good sight more challenging, for starters. Secondly, this would very much put you in their shoes.

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